


i want to sleep next to you... but that's all!

by angelica_barnes



Category: Love Simon (2018), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Multi, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, endgame abby/taylor, endgame nick/leah, endgame spierfeld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 13:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14426784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: sometimes when people get sad, they do stupid things.that's why their friends are there. to save them when they do the stupid things.





	i want to sleep next to you... but that's all!

**Author's Note:**

> all songs named are by Troye Sivan

**1.** _Garrett Laughlin - Wild_

Sure, Bram’s parents were supposed to divorce, but not Garrett’s. His were supposed to be happy and in love until forever, not shouting at each other in the middle of the night. And hell, it’s not like Leah was here, either - she was off with Nick again, because she wanted him as much as he wanted Abby, and wasn’t this just as fucked-up as ever?

And really, he wasn’t thinking when he grabbed that kitchen knife, it was just there and it was so shiny and he was so in love it hurt and how was he supposed to know that he shouldn’t run with sharp things?

His parents were too busy fighting to have ever thought to tell him that.

When his mom found him, his dad said, she’d screamed. They were crying now, just outside in the hallway, to give him and Bram a moment alone.

Bram really did have knobby knuckles and soft hands, like Simon had said, and he held Garrett’s hand so delicately, as if he let go, Garrett would break. He cracked a weak smile.

“You don’t have to keep me from falling apart, dude, I already have.” It never occurred to him until after Bram was asleep next to him at their first sleepover since the incident, his hand clutched in Garrett’s tightly, that that was the first time he’d ever seen Abraham Greenfeld cry.

(It wouldn’t be the last, unfortunately. Bram was too pretty to cry. It had often crossed Garrett’s mind that he just might be a little bit bisexual.)

 

 **2.** _Leah Burke - Strawberries & Cigarettes_

It’s around one in the morning when she sees his face in the window. Nick’s, that is, and she opens it and lets him in. She always has, regardless of what’s good for her.

He’s beaming.

“Abby kissed me,” he blurts, cheeks tainted all pink and sweet, and Leah smiles, laughing with some sort of insanity hidden behind it.

“Really?!” She says, too obnoxious and loud for her, subconsciously pulling down the ends of her sleeves to cover the rosey cuts on her forearms. “That’s great.”

He nods, and she excuses herself to the bathroom. She’s quiet as she sits down on the floor, opening up the bottle of pills and pouring ten into her hand.

She takes them one at a time, and Nick falls asleep in her bed, and in the morning he finds her and screams, screams, screams.

Her eyes are still wide open, her smile sick and happy.

(She’ll never learn that Nick only whispered, “I love you,” to her as he followed her stretcher into the ambulance, and kissed her eighty times and called it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

She’ll never learn that Simon cried into Bram’s arms until he had no tears left, and that he had to start taking (a measured amount of) pills to help with his depression, because even Bram couldn’t make him happy now.

She’ll never learn that Abby moved back to D.C. and that Nick stopped playing soccer, too tired and sad to even bother getting up off the couch, and that he smoked until he caught cancer and died of refusing chemotherapy and having anorexia because he wanted to be pretty when he saw her in heaven, he said.

She’d always said, at least they’d both died. That was a happy ending.

But she cries when Nick shows up, too weak even to stand.

But hey, at least they are alone together.)

 

 **3.** _Abby Suso - Youth_

Her father had always been a scumbag. She should’ve seen it coming, honestly.

But she didn’t, and now she’s here, in love with stupid and arrogant Taylor Metternich, as if that’ll make her situation any better, being head over heels for the straight girl.

Never mind.

Except, yeah. Because Nick and Leah have been together since god knows when, since forever, and Simon and Bram haven’t but they may as well have been, because they’re picture perfect, sweet like candy…

She starts humming. They’d played that song at Simon’s sister’s wedding, and goddammit, she really needs to stop thinking about love because love hurts and love is stupid like stupid Taylor Metternich, and _fuck_.

Taylor likes to kiss Abby backstage, in the dark shadows behind the curtains, and then call it a mistake and introduce Abby to her parents as Taylor’s “friend”.

Abby puts the gun to her head, only because she found it on the set, and it’s fake but she’s forgotten that. She pulls the trigger, and waits for the bang, but it doesn’t come, and she starts crying, half out of relief and half for regret.

Ms. Albright sends her to the guidance office and they call her mom. As she’s waiting, she fidgets with the hem of her shirt and tunes out the counselor’s worried and rehearsed babbling. Same old, same old, it’s exactly what they told her the last time she tried something like this.

There’s a knock on the door, and then Taylor. And Abby stares, unashamedly, until suddenly Taylor’s sitting beside her, holding Abby’s hands in hers so tightly her knuckles have turned white, because goddammit, “I can’t lose you,” the blonde sobs.

And Abby is blank, too surprised to answer.

And when her parents come, Abby is sure that Taylor will let go, that she’ll tell them she’s Abby’s “friend”, that she just escorted her here because “Oh, I was just so _worried_!”

But she was worried. She tells Abby this and kisses her hard, and that’s when Abby’s mom gets there, pale as a black woman can be and she sobs when she sees her daughter, and she wraps Abby up tight in her arms.

“Who are you?” She asks Taylor, and Taylor just smiles and laces her fingers through Abby’s.

“Abby’s girlfriend, Ms. Suso,” and Abby finally learns what breathing easy is.

(Her friends show up with flowers one day while she’s in therapy, and she smiles slightly, but still says nothing, not until Taylor comes in behind them with roses and kisses Abby like it’s the last time she’ll ever get to.

Abby vows then that Taylor will never have to worry about her like that again.

Taylor never tells Abby she loves her, but Abby, for once in her life, knows for sure instead of just wishing.)

 

 **4.** _Bram Greenfeld - Blue_

_P.S._

A day after the ferris wheel, Simon Spier looks sad. So Bram tries to confess, tripping over his words until Simon gets too fed up to stick around, and then goes home and cries into the Elliott Smith shirt he always meant to give to Simon.

_I love the way you smile like you don’t realize you’re doing it._

A week after the ferris wheel, Cal Price brings to school a bouquet of daisies and gives them to Simon at his locker, and Simon blushes and accepts them with a soft thank you, smiling down at his feet. Bram watches from the doorway of Mr. Wise’s classroom, and feels his heart clench in his chest, and tries to convince himself that he’s having a heart attack.

And really, he’d rather he have the heart attack. Dying would be better than watching this.

_I love your perpetual bedhead._

A month after the ferris wheel, Simon comes to school with bags under his eyes and his hair as messy as it’s ever been, and Bram wants to go over and ask if he’s alright. He knows he’d only get somewhat of a half-smile and a “Yeah, man, just pulled an all-nighter writing that fucking essay last minute”. But that’s not what Bram wants, he wants a full Simon smile, one with the sparkling eyes and sweet blush, but that’s not his to have.

Instead Cal asks Simon the question that’s pacing in Bram’s head, and he gets a full Simon smile, and then a light as fingertips joke about oreos.

Bram wants to cry. Oreos are his.

His and Simon's.

_I love the way you hold eye contact a minute longer than you need to._

Five months after the ferris wheel, Cal stands up on a table in the cafeteria and asks Simon to the prom. Simon blushes and accepts, and Bram stands up without a word and runs off to hide in the bathroom. Garrett comes to get him when the bell rings, and he walks Bram to class, where he has to sit with Simon for at least an hour.

Bram squeezes his eyes shut to block the tears threatening to start up again.

When he opens them, he’s in the doorway of Mr. Wise’s class, with twenty pairs of eyes on him, but only one that matters. The ones that stare a second too long, enough to cause Bram to blush.

And then, they flick away, back to Cal, who’s just passing Simon a note. As Bram take his seat, he looks back over his shoulder and realizes that their fingers are intertwined between their desks.

They’re supposed to be writing an essay, but instead he turns into Mr. Wise a story about a boy who lost his love to a blue sun.

Cal’s eyes are blue. His hair is gold.

Bram still gets an A.

_And I love your moon-gray eyes._

And that’s what he thinks about, as he sinks beneath the water in his bathtub. Simon Spier’s moon-gray eyes.

He blacks out with burning lungs and wakes up a week later in a white hospital room. Garrett’s pacing his room and yelling at him like a madman.

Simon isn’t there.

Cal Price is.

With a bouquet of daisies and a postcard with a ferris wheel on it, addressed to Blue, from Jacques.

Bram’s eyes fill with tears as he reads it, and that’s when Cal squeezes his fingers and tells him it’s all gonna be okay. He spends five months in therapy before they let him go home.

Simon runs to him as soon as he’s off the bus, crashing into Bram’s arms as if he’s been missing him like he means something, and his lips are pressed against Bram’s before he can open his mouth to ask why.

“Blue,” is Simon’s only answer, and Bram just buries his face in his Jacques’ neck, and Cal Price just smiles.

A year after the ferris wheel, Simon Spier looks happy.

( _So if you think I’m not attracted to you, Simon, you’re crazy._ )

 

 **5.** _Simon Spier - Talk Me Down_

Martin fucking Addison.

Simon’s never had a reason to hate somebody, but he does now. And it doesn’t really sink in until he walks into school, alone and miserable, eyes flicking around to every passing person - they all take the time to stare and point and whisper.

His lunch table is full. They’ve filled the seats with their backpacks, just to make sure he gets the message.

And then comes those two homophobic assholes who’ve been harrassing Ethan since day one.

Simon’s proud of himself for not breaking down in tears until he gets to the bathroom and locks the door behind him.

He screams then, and slams himself against the walls and punches the mirrors and scratches his nails down the sides of the porcelain sinks and only stops once he slips and knocks his head on the toilet; he doesn’t remember who he is when he wakes up, at least not for the first few hours.

He learns later that it’s Bram who found him. Cried, too, and demanded to be on the ambulance with him. Held his hand the whole time. Got Simon’s friends to forgive him.

“Blue left,” Simon rasps weakly, his only explanation when they ask him why he did it, if it was because of them, “what was there to fight for?”

And Bram takes Simon’s hand in both of his and lifts the blonde’s trembling fingers to his lips, “You, Simon. You had you to fight for.”

Simon shrugs, “Blue left.”

Bram kisses him then, lips as soft as his hands, and smiles at Simon with tears in his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry I did.”

Simon doesn’t ask. Instead, “You love me?”

“More than Oreos, Jacques.”

(This time, Simon cries happy tears, and Leah, Nick, and Abby all hug him and smile and pepper his face with kisses whenever he tries to apologize.

They don’t tell him how Bram had screamed, “I’m Blue! I’m Blue!” until the ambulance drivers had let him go with Simon. Or how Bram had been silent the whole way there, and through Simon’s brain surgery, and through two days of Simon sleeping and not much else.

Bram is still quiet, even after, but he’s happy quiet, now. Simon loves him.)

 

 **6.** _Nick Eisner - Fools_

Abby and Leah are kissing underneath the bleachers. It’s passionate, he knows, because they’ve both got their eyes shut, and they blush when he asks them about it later. Nick stares at his plate and pretends not to care. He can’t try to be happy for them, so apathetic is really the most he can manage.

Leah still cuddles with him during their sleepovers, and kisses him awake, but it’s more of a teasing peck than an “I love you and want to be with you forever” kiss, which is what Nick really wants.

He buries it.

As Simon drives them to school, Nick remembers the day when he learned Leah loved him. And when Abby had glanced his way that first day of senior year. And how he thought he’d have all the time in the world to figure out what he wanted.

Now he knows, too late, and he finally understands why people think drugs are “cool”; they’re sweet relief. Though Leah says he tastes like coke when he kisses her, he bets that isn’t what she means.

He goes to Waffle House the day he decides to do it, and really, it’s just an accident, he means to write their initials in his arms with his razor and then take the drugs to numb the pain, but then he passes out on the bathroom floor and the emergency calls are made.

Simon is with him when he wakes up, and Bram and Garrett. The usual, Nick thinks with a smirk, Bram here for Simon and Garrett here for Bram.

Then, the doe-eyed girl in the corner.

Leah, here for…

Him?

“Just a summer fling, ‘s all,” she murmurs, crossing the room and sitting down on the end of his bed. She takes his hand and rubs her thumb in circles on the back of it, “Abby and I. Just a summer fling. Means nothing, really.”

He says nothing, and she holds his hand tighter. Doesn’t kiss him.

“Nothing,” she chokes out, eyes welling with tears. “Meant nothing, I promise. Not like you. Never like you.”

This time, when she kisses him, it’s the “I love you and want to be with you forever” kind of kiss, and Simon and Bram and Garrett leave for the cafeteria,they say, but really it’s to give them some time alone. Nick doesn’t really care, either way.

“You mean everything,” Leah whispers, and Nick thinks he’s dreaming, but then she pinches his lip beneath her teeth as she kisses him deeper, and he doesn’t wake up.

(None of them ever do.)


End file.
